How do you keep your bedding dry in wet weather?

[Vincentville farm]

For chickens tracking in water, there is not much to be done other than keep replacing the wet bedding with dry (unless you arrange a roof or something to keep the run dry too.)

If the wet area is under the roost, not near a door or window, I wonder if it is really from the rain? Or maybe the chickens are just producing lots of wet droppings while they are sleeping at night? In dry weather the droppings would dry out pretty quickly, but in humid or wet weather they would stay wet longer.

It is common for bedding to get wet & dirty under the roost, even when it stays mostly clean in the rest of the coop. That is because chickens produce a lot of droppings during the night, and they all land right under the roost. The daytime droppings tend to get scattered around the run, which is a much bigger space, so they don't have such an obvious effect.

That makes sense. Ok. I'll just keep changing it out instead of adding to it. I feel like I'm fighting a losing battle when I just add to it.

 

[linguini]

That makes sense. Ok. I'll just keep changing it out instead of adding to it. I feel like I'm fighting a losing battle when I just add to it.

a poop board under the roost may help!

 

[NatJ]

a poop board under the roost may help!

A poop board works fine if someone removes the poop every day (or at other suitable intervals.) This means there is much less poop in the coop, which is a good thing.

But if someone is not willing to clean it frequently enough, then all it does is collect the poop even closer to where the chickens are roosting. Having the same amount of poop even closer to them is not good at all.

So a poop board can make things better or worse, depending on whether the person is willing to manage it properly.

 

[Vincentville farm]

a poop board under the roost may help!

I thought about using a tarp suspended from the roost like I saw someone else do but my chickens walk around under the roost all the time. It would be in their way. That would be the same with a board.

 

[Finnie]

I noticed you have a metal roof. In some of your photos it looks like maybe condensation dripping off the metal might be the culprit.

 

[perkolator]

^that. Condensation drips was my guess too, since it's a metal roof and you can see markings on the wood rafters/purlins where they've gotten moisture in the past

 

[Vincentville farm]

I noticed you have a metal roof. In some of your photos it looks like maybe condensation dripping off the metal might be the culprit.

My metal roof has a snow coat on it so it doesn't have condensation issues (that I know of). Even my spider webs are all dry.

 

[aart]

Just how wet is the area?
Any chance there is rainwater seeping in under the wall?

 

[Vincentville farm]

Just how wet is the area?
Any chance there is rainwater seeping in under the wall?

We don't get wet enough for that. Our ground drinks up everything it can as fast as possible. I did check out the discoloration on the rafters and they are all bone dry. I have a feeling that they were there before we converted this area into a chicken coop. It was originally an open shed.
I'm going to try mixing pellets into my shavings and see how that goes. I would LOVE to see the poop hammock pictures again so I can see if I might be able to work something like that into my coop design.

 

[perkolator]

Is the moist spot only underneath the roosting area, or is it on the ground near their chicken door from bringing it inside? Have you stuck a sprinkler on the roof and gone inside to look for drips? Maybe one roof fastener is letting in water when it rains. Pellets will quickly turn into sawdust once they get wet - which may hold more moisture directly against the wood, so keep that in mind.

There are dozens of pics online of chicken poop hammocks, just use an image search engine